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Military / Pentagon

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Want to bomb Iran? Then support the nuclear deal. That’s the provocative argument coming from Obama administration officials and other backers of the deal as they promote it before a crucial vote in Congress next month.

First Lt. Shaye Haver, an Apache attack helicopter pilot who on Friday will be one of the first women to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School, wants to remain an aviator. But she takes away weighty lessons from her grueling Ranger training: “Your mind can take a whole lot more than your body,” she said.

If the diverse group of candidates competing for the Republican presidential nomination agree on one thing when describing how they would engage with the world if they made it to the White House, it is this: If only the United States were stronger, and more feared, the country would not feel threatened by the Islamic State, manipulated by Iran or challenged by a rising China.

Investigators say they believe the same Russian hackers that carried out attacks on the White House and State Department last year and the attempted penetration of the Pentagon last month were responsible for a major cyberattack that shut down the Joint Chiefs of Staff email for the past 11 days, The Daily Beast has learned.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday harshly criticized the proposed nuclear agreement struck last month between an international coalition, led by the United States, and Iran. But, he said, now that the deal has been struck, the consequences of walking away would be too great.

Turkey plunged into the fight against the Islamic State on Thursday, rushing forces into the first direct combat with its militants on the Syrian border and granting permission for American warplanes to use two Turkish air bases for bombarding the group in Syria.